Sleeping, Studying Have You Been Influenced By Music?

Dear Dr. Roach • For teenagers, does wearing earphones with music playing while at the same time resting influence the nature of their rest? Likewise, does tuning in to music while considering sway the nature of examining? — S.W.

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A Career In Music, Or Just Fame?

Like many of you I occasionally like to watch reality talent shows to potentially discover the next “big thing” that once upon a time we may never have come across. Naturally the world of an unsigned / emerging artist was once a lonely one with a mountain to climb and a lot of hard work and sheer persistence to get yourself heard or in fact in front of the right people. It is a shame though that for the majority of singers / bands that something is definitely missing.

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How To Earn The Most Money As An Independent Musician

As an independent musician, a lot of the time you’re making music for the passion; you love what you do and it loves you. But there comes the time when you need to ask yourself “how am I going to make a living out of this?”

Which is what we thought here at Ditto Music – so we opened the vaults of our data and studied well over 100k releases and found out how an independent musician can make the most money from their release.

There were quite a few interesting data points we found:

• iTunes is the runaway leader in royalty generation for artists - it outperforms all its competitors in every genre and remains the main store when it comes to music sales.

• Soundtrack is the highest grossing genre of music by a long way, bringing in 58% more than average for a release.

• With the debate over Spotify’s royalty distribution in the news, it’s interesting to see that the store pays out far below the average when compared to its rivals.

• Hip-Hop’s popularity over the last few years has seen its stock rise significantly, with a Hip-Hop artist looking to net themselves 11% more than average per release.

We’ve picked through all the data and presented it in a much easier to digest manner, analysing which store is best for your genre, along with how much each genre makes on average.

Infograph

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Newbury Comics Scavenger Hunt

The Newbury Comics scavenger hunt started March 27^th and ends April 6^th. The idea of a huge scavenger hunt pre-record store day is genius. Newbury Comic’s scavenger hunt is a laundry list of tasks that one must complete to gain points; the person with the most points wins the grand prize of $500 Newbury Comics gift card. Some of the tasks are taking pictures in front of famous landmarks or a selfie at the storefront of the first Newbury comics. Other tasks are answering trivia questions and doing activities, while taking selfies.

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The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree

When Apple launched iTunes in 2003, Apple addressed the consumer’s wants by giving them the choice of buying a whole digital album or they had the ability to buy a single track from the album. Apple did not start iTunes to sell music, however to sell the hardware that Apple sells, the iPod. Apple has tried to control music sales since day one to raise the demand for Apple products. In the beginning Apple’s iTunes used DRM technology to block out other competitors that sold MP3 players. This would leave consumers dependent on their iPods. In 2005 Thomas Slattery, filed a lawsuit against Apple. This lawsuit stated that Apple broke antitrust laws by using FairPlay. Any music purchased from iTunes would work only with Apple’s iPod, which froze out competitors. Apple has been a dominant force from its music sales since it’s starting point. Apple has flexed its muscles to control music distribution and deals that worked to their benefit.

In 2010 Apple’s iTunes store started see a decline in sales for the first time. It was at this time that music streaming service started to come in full swing, at this point Spotify was not even introduced to the US Market. Now the tables have turned and Apple is trying to recreate itself once again to address the consumer’s wants by giving them on demand streaming through their revamped Beats music service.

In 2014 iTunes music downloads declined by 14%, while Spotify’s subscriptions increased. Since 2011, Spotify has grown from 10 million subscribers to over 50 million subscribers. I find it funny that the iTunes split of 30/70 will come back to haunt Apple. Basically, the competitor who is stealing streams for downloads is using the same slit. Apple was once making dollar to dollar and now they’re making pennies to the dollar.

Apple, along with Beats music, has to show consumers the value of spending money on a subscription service each month. While other competitors give away freemium tiers and lower subscription fees, this is going to be a hard sell, however, not an impossible one. If anyone can introduce a creative, innovative way for consumers to stream music, it’s definitely the folks at Apple.

Contact Information

email:  jason@jasonkventura.com

website:  http://www.jasonkventura.com

Purify Media Launches PurifyArt.com: Company Directly Links Artists and Fans Through Ad-free Platform

Purify Media announced the release of PurifyArt.com, an ad-free service directly connecting artists and fans. A first of its kind, PurifyArt.com enables artists and fans to find and promote music, images and video on one platform, maximizing the revenue artists and companies receive for sharing and selling content while providing viewers one affordable, complete, and interactive online service.

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Dear Music Writer, Enough of the Fluff

Music writers, we’re in a crisis of credibility - as in we’re losing it. Whether we’re confusing readers with our descriptive diarrhoea, numbing them with our misplaced hyperbole or galling them with our shameless clichés, they are gradually becoming desensitized to everything we have to say.

In a moment of clarity Herbie Hancock told me, “Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.” So we music writers deserve some praise, for essentially tackling the insurmountable task of describing the indescribable - of putting into language that which transcends language. So a pat on the back for all of us, very well done, mum would be proud, here’s an award for participation, now it’s time to pull the finger out. The overwhelming majority of publications spouting ‘content’ (as writing has now been demoted to) are now working directly with the artists, or artists’ PR companies, which they are supposedly appraising independently. Advertising has swallowed up critique and the result is suspiciously unbridled positivity – with dance music writers some of the worst offenders. Well, the readers are onto us.

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Bill Brewster - An Interview About the Industry

If you’re even remotely interested in DJing and dance music culture, sooner or later you will stumble across Bill Brewster. One of the most respected dance music commentators around, he has contributed to almost every major music rag, co-written the dance music bible Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, runs the brilliant website DJHistory.com, writes biographies and liner notes for anyone who is anyone in dance music, DJs globally (of course) and has confessed to amassing between ten and twelve thousand records along the way. He’s basically a walking Shazam, but with a central nervous system and opinions.  MEOKO grilled the living library about his years in the industry, how he feels about its progress, the beginnings of his seminal book and his undying support for Grimsby FC.

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Pickasound; A movement for the free expression of musical Ideas online

About 8 months ago, me and an amateur musician friend of mine living in Toronto were trying to collaborate on a few tracks for his upcoming album.  

I created instrumentals and he wanted to sing over them. 
We were both excited about working together on a project, but when it came time to communicate our musical ideas online, the process proved to be a daunting task.

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The Coffee House Sessions

Coffee House Sessions is a new music initiative, exposing the hottest in upcoming UK music talent to the student market via daytime performances in University coffee shops around the country: http://youtu.be/CZRp_MoTqhM. 

With a carefully designed touring circuit taking place in 40 universities, Coffee House Sessions holds acoustic performances at two different campuses a day over a ten day period and provides promotion for the showcased artists through student media outlets such as student newspapers, student radio and student TV at each university.

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Radionomy: Real Humans Making Real Online Radio

Radionomy, free user created internet radio giving you the tools to create, program and produce as many stations as you want with the ability to monetize your audience.

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Before You Sign...

What You Should Know Before You Sign the Deal can be found in this book…

Unlike any other book about the music business, “Music Business: It’s a Dirty Game!”,

this book is not a ‘puff piece’ about the glitz and glamour about the music business.

This book takes you on a journey from the excitement of having a music publishing contract with a major music publishing company to the legal battles that followed.

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Need help winning Joe Bonamassa's Blues Masters Competition

Hello my name is Hollaman Lindsay and I am asking all of you to see if you can possibly aid me in my attempt to win Joe Bonamassa’s Blues Masters Competition. The first round for this contest is based off of viral popularity and how many views and shares your audition video gets, now I aint sayin that I cant generate that many views and shares because I dont have the talent, Its just that I live in Hiram Georgia and we got more stock in rakes then we do computers so its hard for me to find many people around me to support it. So I am inquiring you to see if you can help me get my name out there and get my audition video views and shares because if I can get past this first round and make it to guitar duals I think I got it made in the shade.

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Music Without Labels Seeking Submissions for New Web Series!

Hello Everyone!

I am the spokesperson for Music Without Labels & Beat-Play LLC.  MWL is an umbrella for many music projects, ideas and conversation. The MWL Live just wrapped up a on a 15,000 mile cross-country video tour covering the hottest summer musicians and artists across the country. We featured several great bands such as Portugal. The Man, Datsik, The Lonely Forest, Yann Tiersen, Carina Round, Vintage Trouble, Dry the River, Washed Out, Gardens & Villa, Fun. and many more! Check out the MWL Live Tour 2012 videos here. 

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